Bank of England says lenders must do more to shore up cyber defences

LONDON, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Britain's banks must do more to
protect themselves and the wider financial system from growing
and evolving cyber crime, the Bank of England said on Friday.

Worried by the increasing rate of attacks on banks by
Internet hacks, the BoE surveyed 36 financial firms and banks in
Britain and found no immediate critical shortcomings in their
defences.

"But they did point to areas for improvement that we will be
following up on with firms," Andrew Gracie, an executive
director at the BoE in charge of winding down failed lenders,
told a Cyber Defence and Security Network conference.

A joint testing programme between the U.S. and UK
governments and authorities will start this year.

Gracie suggested that banks were still fighting the last war
to some extent, such as protecting physical locations.

"These still matter. But cyber changes the game. Cyber is a
dynamic, intelligent and adaptive threat. In the cyber arms
race, costs are stacked in favour of the attacker, not the
defender," Gracie said.

He said banks must invest in ways to identify threat and
cyber attacks, a task that should not be left just to junior
"technologist".